Sins cannot be undone, only forgiven.
The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self. And the arbitrariness of the constraint serves only to obtain precision of execution.
A good composer does not imitate; he steals.
The real composer thinks about his work the whole time; he is not always conscious of this, but he is aware of it later when he suddenly knows what he will do.
To listen is an effort, and just to hear is no merit. A duck hears also.
Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal.
I haven't understood a bar of music in my life, but I have felt it.
Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end.
What force is more potent than love?
I have learned throughout my life as a composer chiefly through my mistakes and pursuits of false assumptions, not by my exposure to founts of wisdom and knowledge.
Music is given to us with the sole purpose of establishing an order in things, including, and particularly, the coordination between man and time.
The Church knew what the psalmist knew: Music praises God. Music is well or better able to praise him than the building of the church and all its decoration; it is the Church's greatest ornament.
The principle of the endless melody is the perpetual becoming of a music that never had any reason for starting, any more than it has any reason for ending.
Just as appetite comes by eating, so work brings inspiration, if inspiration is not discernible at the beginning.
I know that the twelve notes in each octave and the variety of rhythm offer me opportunities that all of human genius will never exhaust.
My music is best understood by children and animals.
Film music should have the same relationship to the film drama that somebody's piano playing in my living room has on the book I am reading.
In order to create there must be a dynamic force, and what force is more potent than love?
What gives the artist real prestige is his imitators.
I am in the present. I cannot know what tomorrow will bring forth. I can know only what the truth is for me today. That is what I am called upon to serve, and I serve it in all lucidity.
